The Warmth of Love Integrates Humanity

Talk given by Rev. Master at Chicago, Illinois, USA on August 1, 2003

I don't know how many of you there are. I see a lot of you but, as usual, I wish there were more. You know, we are always asking for more and more. And Babuji once said that is a natural human tendency, because somebody asked him, "Why do you want more abhyasis?" He said, "I come from Infinity and therefore I want Infinity." And as we have been discussing in Detroit, and again in Dayton, it is time that the Mission spread its wings in the U.S. to serve more and more people of this country. Not to distinguish between Indians and Americans and things like that, but more and more. And naturally, when we are in America, you know, the majority population is American, and we should be able to serve them better and better.

We are always, we Indians, we like everybody to change. Of course, Babuji wants everybody to change, but Indians seem to want Europeans and Americans to become more Indian in their outlook, which is not what Babuji meant. Babuji meant inner change, change in character, but not change in the colour of the skin, and the height of the body, and you know the way of speaking English which is peculiarly American. And we Indians should therefore develop the ability to change ourselves, too. Not lose your Indianisms, not lose your culture, but accept the fact that this world is full of cultures, and traditions and languages - all of them beautiful, all of them very human. As we say in India, the blood that flows through our veins is all the same. Our loves, our hates - they are all the same. Our aspirations - they are universal; our needs basically are the same.

So this sameness that is human should be emphasized. The cultures that we bring to this world from our various nationalities, regions, geographies are worth preserving - not flaunting, preserving. And it is good to shed this ego and arrogance about what we call our own culture. There is no such thing as our own culture. You can have a bunch of roses, but you can also have a bunch of flowers all different, and it looks more beautiful. Beauty comes from variety. There is the individual beauty, there is the beauty of variety, variegated beauties. All Nature is beautiful, deserts are beautiful.

You know, there are places in Rajasthan to which overseas people flock in winter, to live in tents in the desert to see the night sky. It's something different. You can pluck the stars out of the heavens as it were. You reach out and the star is there. You never see such skies anywhere else. The sand dunes - they have their own beauty. When the wind blows, and blows away the sand in, like, wisps of smoke - that has its own beauty. Deserts are beautiful, farmlands are beautiful, mountains are beautiful, forests are beautiful, lakes are beautiful. You cannot say, "I like only lakes and the broad lands of the Midwest." Why not the mountains? When I go to India, I go to the Himalayas, and they are lovely. I mean, they are beyond description, but so is my beach in Madras. I mean, nothing can hold a candle to my beach. It is mine, therefore it is beautiful. Like my child is beautiful, my abhyasis are beautiful, my people are beautiful, my world is beautiful.

So I want you people to develop this idea that all that is mine is God-given. And when we say 'mine' it is each one of ours, it's not only mine exclusively. It is mine because it's ours.

So this tendency to be individual in a community where we share values, where we cherish the same values, where we have the same aspirations, the same goal, that is what should weld us into a strong unified community which can grow. You know, after all when you want to create a ripple in a pond, a tiny pebble is enough. You don't have to throw a rock. A tiny pebble - and that pebble drops and the rings of splendour spread outwards. That is natural. The pebble doesn't do it. It creates the first stir, as Babuji said - the kshobh. And that does, eventually, the spreading. Each one of you should be able to drop a pebble in this ocean of humanity, and create what? These tiny wavelets in circles, which will spread to infinity. We don't have to make big efforts, we don't have to run marathons. We don't have to feed the multitude with two loaves and five fishes. Each one of us in our own humility, in our own humble approach, loving approach, has to put a small part of ourselves into this ocean of humanity and create that wave which will go on and on forever, because the ocean is limitless. This is what I would like all of you to participate in, to work with your heart.

Don't be afraid of giving! He who gives receives. You know, Jesus says, "He that shall preserve his life shall lose it, and he that shall lose it, shall gain it." We have to lose. What have we to lose? First our egos - our aloneness, our uniqueness. Because when we are in the Brighter World, there will be no separateness; there will still be the identity of the Master, the Grand-Master, yourself. Hopefully, we will all meet there one blessed day. We will still be individuals retaining our identities, but we shall not be separate from each other. You see, individuality does not mean separateness. Being an Indian must not mean isolation from the American environment, which is a beautiful environment. As we have our deficiencies, our lacks, our customs which are antiquated, our superstitions, our beliefs which should be thrown away, they have theirs, too, and so have every race in this world, every community in this world.

What brings us together must be our sameness, our oneness, our commonness. And all that distinguishes us, separates us, must be put away. God created us in various colours, various shapes, various sizes. That we cannot change. But, God did not create Hindus and Muslims and Christians and Buddhists. God did not create culture and language - these are ours.

If you read about the Tower of Babel in the Bible, you know what happened - chaos, destruction. Each race, each community, flaunting its own language, its own uniqueness. You go to India and you find different states: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada being just three in the South and Malayalam. You go to Andhra Pradesh, there are divisions there: the Khammas, the Reddys, the Naidus, the Brahmins, isn't it? And you go into the Khamma region, there are differences there again. So if you want to differentiate, it means you are slicing up into smaller and smaller bits and claiming that you are unique. Otherwise, why should an Indian, when he is an Indian here, not be an Indian when he goes back to India? There you become Telugus and Tamils and Hindi-speaking; and in Hindi-speaking, you have the Thakurs and the Brahmins and the Patels, you know, everything divisive.

Sahaj Marg is trying to dissolve these barriers, not break them down, but dissolve them. Dissolve them with what? With the warmth of love. You know, warmth always dissolves. If you want to melt ice, you don't freeze it, you make it warm. Hold it in your hand. Every child knows that when you hold an ice cream cone, it starts to drip. Your human warmth is melting it. And that's why they lick away frantically before it melts. Why can't we give this warmth and melt off all these barriers which are our creations?

So the theme of my visit to the United States this year, and to Europe where I started giving this message, is of unification. I told Europeans that money and commercial interests, economic values have brought you together - one Euro. But Europeans are still very isolated: the French are still French, the Germans are still Germans. And they have guarded their frontiers which don't seem to exist any more, because there are no frontiers when you travel on the roads, the borders have been dissolved. But in your mind they are still there - the borders, the frontiers. And you go to France, of course, there are still the Gascoignes and the southern French and the eastern French, and the western French. You go to Switzerland, which is a tiny thing, I mean, you can cover it practically with a handkerchief, and there you have the Italian-speaking Swiss, the German-speaking Swiss, the French-speaking Swiss.

So you see, divisiveness can be carried on infinitely. Integration in one stroke. Human beings are human beings. Overnight, we can become citizens of this world without any barriers of nationality, geography, politics. Language is beautiful, linguistic variation is wonderful provided we don't use it to separate ourselves. Differences in music, whether it is classical or otherwise, various systems starting from Japan to China to India to the Muslim world, to the European world, and to your own blues, or whatever you call them here, jazz - they are all beautiful. If they are expressed in individual beauty to form a cluster like a flower bunch, it's wonderful. But if you want to use it as a separating device to be isolated, it is wrong. It will not be tolerated by Nature.

Destruction comes when we are anti-God. What God made one, we want to separate. God made one world, we have, I don't know, one hundred and forty-eight nations. In each nation, we have so many states, counties, what have you. For governing, it may be necessary, like I wear shoes on my feet, and gloves on my hands. It is significant that in German language, gloves are called handschuh, you know, shoes for the hand. What are shoes and gloves? I mean, you have five fingers, you have five toes. The shape is different.

So let us forget all these divisions. Let us forget our sambhar and our avakkai and our gongura chutneys. Let us eat food: wholesome, prepared with love, which can be shared by all. If there is something which will not make it acceptable to somebody else, like chilies in Andhra food, or like gud [jaggery] in Gujarati food (gud means not G-O-O-D, but you know, the other variety of sugar), let us eschew them.

What separates us we must throw off as not good for humanity. It may be good for me, but for us it is not good. So let us adopt that which is good for us, that which will make us grow bigger and bigger. And bring Sahaj Marg into a bigger and bigger body of, what should I say, people, nations, the world itself. And this sort of approach, I tell you, has been blessed from time immemorial, is being blessed and will always continue to be blessed.